Documentary on Shroud

Image by Barrie Schwortz; STERA Inc.

​EWTN broadcasted a documentary called The Holy Winding Sheet: Exploring the Shroud of Turin.

When Parker Dow was a high school senior at a Catholic school in St. Louis, he began his investigation into the Shroud of Turin as part of his senior thesis. To his surprise, most of his friends had never heard of this cloth called the Shroud of Turin. For me this isn't a surprise. Throughout my life and wherever I visited, few know about the last miracle Jesus did for us today, while on Earth 2,000 years ago. A full body photograph of Jesus Himself called The Shroud of Turin.

The media is mostly to blame for this, because they milk the controversies to make money year after year with specials or articles that all end the same way... "We may never know." But we do know! Virtually all experts agree the Shroud of Turin is the linen cloth that wrapped the crucified body of Jesus Christ. 

When Parker Dow made his documentary, that is around 50 minutes long, my publisher at BBV Publishing was already good friends with Barrie Schwortz, the scientific photographer on the 1978 STURP team. Barrie provided some input for my historic novel: Upper Room, The Way. In Parker's documentary he interviews several Shroud experts and Barrie is one of them.

Overall, the documentary is done professionally and is great for introducing details about the Shroud for the first time to teenagers or any adult who doesn't know about the Shroud of Turin. There are a few sections of some interviews with the experts that hit a monotone delivery, but this doesn't deter from the presented facts.

Some KEY take aways and notes from Dow's documentary are:

• How the four Shroud experts came to believe that this cloth covered the historical Jesus.
• One of the strongest facts that disproves all those who claim this cloth is fake.*

*The fact that when viewing the Shroud under ultraviolet light you see what is invisible to the unaided eye. What forger, some 800 years ago, would know about or even know how to make bodily fluids invisible to the eye, but visible in the future when ultraviolet light was invented? What forger would even know about this clear bodily serum over half a century before modern medical science did? These facts should have behooved Dow to state them again and in more detail.

The documentary also traces the Shroud’s journey from Jerusalem to Turin and looks at the controversial 1988 carbon test. An amazing view of the last miracle Jesus did for us to see and hold today, a miracle done at His last second of physically existence on Earth 2,000 years ago.

- LJ
Author of UPPER ROOM, THE WAY: 33AD to 57AD
All Author and Publisher's profits go to help the poor from sales of this Historical Novel

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